New York Times – The Thinking Housewife

Emmie’s Choice

Why would a healthy, affluent, college-educated 22-year-old woman decide to abort her child when there are thousands of infertile couples clamoring for newborns and adoption agencies offering to pay all expenses during pregnancy and birth?

There are three major reasons:

1. Childbirth, even when it entails no further responsibilities, awakens femininity. Two people are born at birth: the mother and the child. This awakening threatens the single-minded obsession with the masculine pursuit of career.

2. Pregnancy and childbirth, even in an age of sexual freedom, are shameful for unmarried women of a certain class. They are low-status events when not surrounded by the trappings of marriage, baby showers, the painstakingly decorated nursery, comfortable living conditions, etc.

3. Childbirth is contrary to an ethic of self-fulfillment. This radical change means confusion and ostracism in a culture of youthful narcissists.

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January 5, 2010

Emmie’s Adventure

A Field Guide to Evil would be handy sometimes, wouldn’t it? It could offer graphics that look like geological cross-sections, with their observable layers of rock. Like the earth, evil is multilayered, extending into the past and composed of radically different materials.

Here is a perfect example of what I mean.

Lisa Belkin of the New York Times in her Adventures in Parenting series (take note of the title; that’s one layer) interviews a woman who has become unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 22. She is unmarried and has just been accepted into a prestigious master’s program. Belkin presents Emmie’s case and solicits comments on what the young woman should do about her predicament. Seven hundred readers write in with their ideas. After publicly considering the possibilities of adoption, raising the child and abortion (marriage does not appear to be an option she considers), Emmy opts for an abortion. She ends her meditations on the subject with this kernel of heartfelt wisdom:

If I get my degree then maybe the path it will take me on will lead me to work on women’s issues. Maybe one day I’ll make a million dollars and start a scholarship program for pregnant graduate students. I can’t believe that nothing good can come of this, I know I’ll do something right one of these days.

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January 4, 2010